Who owns the ePortfolio?

This is a question I hadn't given much thought to in the past, but now as the owner of my very own ePortfolio, it makes more sense.   In my opinion, I own it.  It is after all my intellectual property right? It was created by me and the details of the design are mine, but the reason my portfolio came to be is the EDLD program at Lamar University.  The answer is, it is mine but that is not the case for every ePortfolio out there.

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The EDLD program at Lamar provides the graduate students like myself with authentic learning experiences as part of COVA  (Thibodeaux, 2015).  Though I created an ePortfolio as part of the program, it it my ideas and designs that throughout and it is my learning that is evident in my blog posts like this one and in my innovation plan.  Do my professors give me assignments that are carried out in the ePortfolio? Yes, however they give a scaffold and what I actually produce is almost entirely up to me.  It is authentic and important to me because it represents me as a teacher and as a learner.  

The ePortfolio is becoming a widely used tool for college and high school students, but not all portfolios are created equal.  Too often, they are used as a dumping ground for traditional  assignments as pointed out in the post "Do I Own My Domain If You Grade It?" (Rikard 2015).  He made valid points about student ownership of their work if it is just premade assignments they have to complete and then post to their ePortfolio.  There is a lack of choice, voice, and ownership for students with a portfolio like that.

The answer to the  question of who owns the ePortfolio lies in how it is used.  If it is merely a place where traditional assignments that students had no choice or control in go, then the student does not own it.  If instead, COVA is applied and the student creates the portfolio and has choice over its content, then it is owned by the student.

References:

Barrett, H. (2005) ePortfolios for learning(Blog). Retrieved December 5, 2020 from: http://electronicportfolios.org/blog/

Rikard, A. (2018, December 27). Do I Own My Domain If You Grade It? - EdSurge News. Retrieved December 5, 2020, from https://www.edsurge.com/news/2015-08-10-do-i-own-my-domain-if-you-grade-it